this is the book that the current movie by the same name showing in theaters around the country is based on. the movie looked interesting and my friend who suggested the book to me only a week or two before the movie was debuting assured me that it was a pretty quick but very good read. he was right on both accounts.

the premise of the book is to do a deep dive into the making of his album ‘nebraska’. it doesn’t spend a great deal of ink on the rest of his career – there are plenty of other books that can help you there. the author is of the impression that this is his most important work in many ways, and makes a very good case throughout the book. bruce had just had his biggest commercial success so far in 1980 with ‘the river’, and was under some pressure after the tour promoting the album to follow up with another release.

but as the book and the movie make clear, bruce was exhausted from the tour, and on top of that was beginning to deal with some inner demons. he rented a place in a small town in new jersey with the idea that he would buckle down and start writing some songs. his roadie set him up with a fairly new tape machine that could add four track recording onto a standard cassette tape you could buy in a drug store at the time.

the solitude led to an outpouring of creativity but also a wellspring of emotions revolving around his troubled childhood in freehold, new jersey, which was just down the road. i will let the book and the movie flesh out more of the details here, but the songs that he was writing here were starting to break down into two categories – a handful of tunes that were more on the possible commercial side (and many would eventually show up on the the ‘born in the u.s.a’ album), but then at least a dozen that were much darker in material and characters.

it is this latter batch of songs that would eventually be the basis for the ‘nebraska’ album. and the album would eventually use the tracks he made on that cassette tape in the bedroom of that rental, crude as they were. against great market pressure, bruce was adamant to release it as is with no marketing, tour, or press.

i am not the biggest bruce fan around – i was into him quite a bit early on, but started to lose interest in the late eighties. but i do think that ‘nebraska’ is certainly one of my favorites, and so the story was very compelling to me.

i finished the book this morning, and went to see the movie in the local theater this afternoon. i was glad i read the book first, but also glad to see the movie. i think that it also helped that i relistened to the album all the way through about three times while reading the book. the book helped to prepare me for a lot of the material and topics in the movie. i think that the movie was well done – emotional and well acted. obviously there is a lot in the book that did not make it to the big screen, and there are parts in the movie that are not in the book (probably the biggest one being a focus on his relationship to a local waitress at a diner in town). i don’t think you need to read the book to appreciate the movie. but if you enjoy the latter, maybe you might be interested enough to circle back on the book.

hat tip to kevin for the suggestion.